


Goretober 2017 prompts

by Fluoradine



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: (again not?? really??), (more like self-torture but hey), (up to u to decide rlly), Amputation, Bathing/Washing, Blood, Burns, Cryogenics, Cutting, Demon Hunters, Demons, Don't try this at home kids, Frostbite, Gore, Goretober 2017, Gross, Hypothermia, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Insomnia, Loss of Limbs, Medical Experimentation, Medical Torture, Mild Gore, Near Death Experiences, Other, Past Character Death, Resurrection, Rituals, Self-Harm, Sleep Deprivation, Torture, Trapped, Zombies, dying, lots of blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-07
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-10 01:45:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12288606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fluoradine/pseuds/Fluoradine
Summary: Welcome to Goretober where I don't write fluff for once and I get to gross myself out! Yay! Collection of various Overwatch gore prompts - tags will be updated with each addition. All works will contain descriptions of violence and gore - specifics and trigger warnings will be included at the start of every prompt.





	1. this is not the end

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: please don't murder people, i don't think this is hot or anything i'm just havin fun
> 
>  
> 
> First prompt: Decay/Falling Apart - Human resurrection is a tricky process. Mercy learns it is anything but pretty or successful.

Doctor Ziegler was one of the very best in her field. She was renowned for her years of work and research, had access to the top technology and training, and had never once lost a patient on the job. Repairing broken bones was easy - extracting bullets, she could do in her sleep. Cleaning lost limbs, restructuring caved ribs, and even minor surgery were all mere medical errands for Overwatch’s top medic. 

But the one thing she could never perfect was human resurrection.

The human soul was a tricky thing. It wasn’t considered a physical property, and wasn’t involved in medicinal treatments. No one in medical school ever talked about it, and it was considered irrelevant by all her experts and teachers. Ziegler’s research in nanobiology had shown her how to fix any and every physical wound, but she had never encountered anything to do with the metaphysical realm until late into her surgery days. 

If there was one truth Ziegler knew, it was that you couldn’t bargain with death. It came, it took, and it left children without parents. But the new truth she learned was that when the heart stopped beating and the lungs went still, a human’s soul stayed behind after the body was declared dead. And within the short timespan it was still reachable, with the proper complicated medical procedure, it was possible to reattach it to its vessel - thus bringing the recently deceased back to life. 

It was then when Ziegler had stopped listening and begun daydreaming. She had never even considered the possibility of resurrection before. There had never been a treatment for death before, and now she had the chance to save thousands more, nullify loss and mitigate heartbreak, all with a single, medically-proven treatment. If she could figure out how to do it properly, she would be a hero.

It was this that brought Ziegler’s medical talent to Overwatch. Her passion for peace and secret of never-ending life captivated the directors, and she had her first surgery on the day she arrived. By then, she had tested the resurrection process on everything from roadkill to recently-deceased cancer patients. It was a go from everyone, and all eyes were on her chance to perform it.

Her first real test was on a former Blackwatch agent. The boy had been impaled by a machine fork minutes before she got to him, and was declared dead at the moment of impact. HIs body was quite a sight - blood had trickled from his mouth to the already-soaked uniform, his eyes were staring dead in front of him, and all of the veins in his arms were practically popping out from underneath the pale skin. But his soul was still alive beneath the destroyed body, and Ziegler was prepared to do what she needed to to save him. 

Within six seconds of her Caduceus staff working its magic, the boy took his first breath through punctured lungs. Hours of surgery followed, her fellow doctors dumbfounded at Ziegler’s resurrection. She was greeted back at the base by congratulations and hugs, everyone astounded at how she had reached past death without any hesitation or fear. She even caught a glimpse of the agent the day afterwards, looking good as new, or rather, old. 

But the situation was much different in the weeks that followed. Ziegler’s previous tests had confirmed that once the soul was reconnected with the body, the patient’s medical health returned to normal with the help of surgery. All of the patients she had tested on had lived for months after being resurrected, suffering mild colds and fevers but never anything close to what had killed them. But nlike these tests, the Blackwatch agent never fully returned to normal.

It was as if Ziegler had created a zombie. As weeks went by, the boy’s pale skin began to change colour - first a sickly green followed by a clotted and thick red, which eventually turned to a hypothermic blue that was cold and slimy to the touch. At the same time, the pupils of his eyes dilated so large some swore they had gone fully black, erasing any colour that had once been inside the iris. His stares were glassy and unfocused, as if he could barely see out of them properly anymore.

After a month, the other Blackwatch agents started to complain of the resurrected boy’s smell. They said the stench of rotten eggs and cabbage followed him through the halls of the base, wafting into every corner and crevice. They also complained about his breathing - every breath he took was the echo of a death rattle, as if he was choking on his own air. Blisters started appearing everywhere along with unexplained swelling and chronic nosebleeds. The Blackwatch agents weren’t sure what Ziegler had done to him, and increasingly, neither was she. 

After two and a half months, no one on the base could look at him. The boy’s skin was charred black from the pooling blood, and was starting to fall off in clumps along with his hair and teeth. He was bloated, bleeding from every orifice, and smelled of rotted flesh - a sight no one could stand to be anywhere near. Even the boy himself was terrified, often communicating his horror through strained gestures and raspy sounds. Eventually, the directors brought him to the medical centre and received no answers, not even from Ziegler herself, who was in turn disgusted by what she had done. 

But even though she gave the directors no proper answer for the cause of his condition, Ziegler knew what had happened. The boy’s body had begun to decay even though his soul continued to live, going through the stages of rigor mortis slowly and grotesquely. None of her previous tests had ever caused this to happen, and she had no idea what to do now. She knew she should have been fired and had her license revoked - but Ziegler wasn’t ready to give up just yet.

So she did what she knew would work - claimed the boy’s condition was a fluke: an obvious product of the injury that had killed him in the first place. No one could be expected to live a healthy life after such an incident, so was this any different? She assured the directors that their ‘highly trained, wondrous hired doctors’ would sort him out in no time, and asked politely for another chance to prove her process really did work. 

And she was allowed to keep going. Overwatch moved her to a private medical bay and gave her permission to continue her ‘experiments’ there. More dead bodies came to her office, and within seven months she had created six more living dead. Much like the Blackwatch agent, they all started out the same - perfectly normal for the first two weeks, then showing symptoms of decay within a month with no solution at hand. 

During that time, she worked tirelessly on a antidote for the symptoms, hoping that it would be enough to save the patients from their eventual demise. And it did work - but not enough to save them past three months of their new life. It quickly became obvious that the only definite solution was to kill them again and end their suffering - but Ziegler knew that wasn’t an option. She hadn’t done all this work against the very force of death just to end it all over a few zombies. 

With each resurrection, the process became cleaner, but the aftermath stayed the same. With every failure came the drive to succeed with the next one. She always promised herself that the next one would live, the next one would be alright. She derived herself of sleep, lying awake to the sound of her patient’s groans and cries for relief from the rooms over. She worked on antidotes nonstop, begging Overwatch for more chances to prove resurrection was possible, and constantly reassured herself that she was doing the right thing - if she could just get it right once, she would be a hero. 

The new truth was that Ziegler was obsessed. Ever since she had discovered the reality of resurrection, it had gripped her by the throat and turned her into a killer. Even after seeing how much pain it caused her patients, she kept going. She couldn’t stop - she knew she couldn’t. Turning back wasn’t an option at this point. She was cheating death, the one thing she had been told was untouchable. And if that wasn’t proof enough that she really was the very best in her field, then nothing was. 

 

“How are you feeling this morning, Genji?”

Ziegler’s newest patient looked the same as he had yesterday, which was nearly the same as Overwatch had found his body in Hanamura. She smiled as she reread his autopsy - multiple stab wounds, severe spinal cord injury, loss of right arm and amputation of both legs. Cause of death: murder. Ziegler wondered how on earth someone could have done something this intense on their own.

Genji didn’t answer her as she brought him his morning medicine - her newest version of the antidote mixed with juice. She found most of her other patients found it easier to swallow it that way, especially since most of their esophagi had stopped working properly. He didn’t reach to drink it, and Ziegler hoped she wouldn’t have to force it down some other way.

Genji was the most different from all Ziegler’s previous resurrections: Overwatch had replaced the destroyed parts of his body with cybernetics, designed to keep him alive and in proper fighting condition. He was still getting used to it two weeks after his resurrection, but Ziegler could tell it was going in the right direction already. She could see the skin around the cybernetics beginning to green, and noticed the increased size of his pupils already.

“I’ll be running some tests on you later today, Genji,” she said as she pushed the glass closer to his reach. “It’s nothing to worry about - just routine checkups to make sure you’re in good condition.”

Genji still said nothing. She knew she wasn’t his friend, but that was fine with her. She had learned to view the patients as nothing more than her steps to eventual success, the stones she needed to step on to become a world-renowned hero. 

“Come to my office at half past two, okay? They won’t take long, and you’ll be back in bed by no time,” Ziegler said cheerily, writing down Genji’s vitals on her clipboard and taking good notice of his slow heartbeat. “Just…try not to pay attention to the other patients. Don’t go past their rooms on your way to my office.”

On cue, a fumbling sound came from outside the room, and Ziegler looked to see a bloated, blue face staring in from the hallway. That was her other priority patient, only a month into the decaying process and still holding strong. He was prone to wandering the medical bay, restless in response to his constant pain and demise. She shook her head sadly as she realized she could no longer afford to have him walking around like this, not with a new prospect success in the building.

Ziegler chuckled at her patient’s dead stare, and turned her attention back to Genji. He looked in horror at the patient, his heart rate going up along with an increased rate of raspy breaths. Ziegler knew he was no fool - he knew what was going to happen to him eventually. She knew it, too - three years now and she still hadn’t discovered how to stop it. Her only hope was that Genji would prove her right, and make her the successful pioneer she wanted to be.

“Like I said,” she said. “Pay them no mind. They’re harmless.”

“Why do you let them live like this?” Genji’s first words of the morning were quiet and incredulous, asking a simple question Ziegler had no satisfying answer to. Already she could tell he would last longer than the others had - with a voice that strong after two weeks of decay, he would be her first successful resurrection. 

Ziegler smiled again at Genji. She walked over to the counter, and handed the glass of medicine. He drank it in one sip, still staring at the patient tapping his hands on the window. He was terrified of becoming that, all life gone and living as a walking corpse. Ziegler shook her head, knowing that the rest of her her morning had just been booked up. 

“For good reason.” she assured him, taking the empty glass and writing down one last note on her clipboard: 

_‘New patient is in stunning condition. Reminder to remove all detrimental environmental factors from his area. Previous potential patient will no longer be observed.’_


	2. araignée du soir, cauchemar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amélie cannot sleep. She finds comfort in the worst of pain. 
> 
> Intense trigger warning for self-harm and blood - definitely better to not read if these trigger you.
> 
> Sorry about any mistakes in the French, I never understood it in class and mainly used wordreference for this.

Amélie had been awake for days. Her eyelids felt as heavy as steel, and she struggled to keep herself upright as she walked out onto the balcony. She had lost track of the time - this was either late night or early morning judging by the bright light of the moon above. It shone directly into her open eyes, blurring her vision and burning her pupils. Yet she kept looking into its guiding light that brought her closer and closer to the ledge above the road. 

Six days had passed since Amélie had been checked out of the hospital. She’d been under intensive care for her illness, a horrible condition that could only be treated by experts and specialists. It had apparently been present in her for weeks - the symptoms had seized her one morning at breakfast, where she’d blacked out and woken up in the ER attached to multiple IVs. The doctors had been nice enough to explain that everything was alright, and had stayed with her throughout the rest of the medical tests and procedures. 

But the treatments had ended eventually, and Amélie was glad to be home. Gérard had made all her favourite meals since she’d gotten back, and had slept extra close to her every night. Amélie continued on as if nothing had interrupted her - she practiced her dance steps every day, painted her nails, even played with the cat a few times during bouts of boredom - because that was what she did, wasn’t it? Her life had tried to throw her off-balance many times before, never succeeding and likely not to succeed this time, either. 

Sleep was the only problem. Amélie could not fall asleep. She realized after two nights that counting sheep wouldn’t make any difference, and neither would pills or drugs - and so she ended up practicing more dance steps or lying in bed hallucinating. The face she saw in the wall across from her wasn’t scary nor comforting - it only served as a sign that something was wrong. When she did try to roll over and sleep, it stared right through her, and she shot up like a bullet every time, knowing this would be another sleepless night. 

Out on the balcony, Amélie yawned. The cold air rushed down her throat like a shot, and she shivered. This was night six of insomnia, and day four of her hazy memory. That had begun shortly after the second restless night - Amélie had found herself forgetting what she had just done moments ago, and could never recount what she had done the night before. It was worrying Gérard, and it was starting to worry her, as well.

Still, Amélie was mostly unfazed by her current situation. The lack of sleep wasn’t bothering her as much as Gérard insisted it must be, and the forgotten pieces of the day were mostly minor inconveniences. After all, she was getting much more time to do everything the doctors had asked her to - take two pills nightly, hum her favourite music, dance for as long as she liked… Perhaps no longer needing to sleep was a blessing rather than a curse. 

Amélie loved being out here. It was what had sold her on the apartment - the perfect view of the city, looking straight down on the glowing night life. She could even hear the music playing downtown, another upbeat song reminiscent of her favourite Saint-Saëns piece. Amélie hummed it as she sat down on the ledge, eventually swaying back and forth in time to the music playing in her head. It was just like dancing, only much more peaceful. 

As she hummed, she ran her fingers over the cat scratches on her forearms, wincing as she touched the rough skin. _Un tel casse-pied,_ she thought to herself. _Mais une telle amélioration._ The doctors had told her how healthy cuts like these were, especially with her condition - she apparently needed to be exposed to natural injury as often as possible in order to recover as quickly as possible. 

She brought her feet up onto the ledge with her as she kept humming, eventually bringing her knees to her chin and curling into a ball. Her nightgown draped over the balcony and swayed in the soft breeze. Amélie felt like a princess sitting here all alone, her eyes wide open as she hummed her favourite song. If she weren’t so comfortable, she would have gotten up and danced alone for all to see.

But she kept rubbing the scratches on her arm, and eventually the sensation began to annoy her. _Que puis-je faire pour l’arrêter?_ she thought again, rolling down the sleeves of the gown to see the thin, almost invisible lines underneath the bright light. No one would properly notice them unless they felt how raised off of the skin they were, and unfortunately, Amélie could not stop running her fingers over them.

Eventually, she started to drag her fingernails down the lines. It was as if she was tracing them, mapping them out like a direction down the dance floor. She began to hum the Saint-Saëns again, scratching her skin to the rhythm and not bothering to stop once she drew a trickle of blood out from underneath the skin.

Amélie kept humming as she began to dig her filed fingernails into her veins, feeling the sharp tip pierce through the thick surface layer of skin. Both her hands remained still, and she watched the tiny cuts bloom with red before the colour spread down her forearm. The lines grew taller, thicker, and fuller as she continued to trace them, and she dug deeper, crooking her finger to reach as far beneath the surface as she could. A wave of calm washed over her - this was far better than closing her eyes and ignoring all the beautiful parts of life for hours without end.

The splashes of red blooming all across her arm was the most gorgeous painting Amélie had ever seen. She smiled as she continued to work on her masterpiece, the hummed tune growing louder with each stroke of her finger. _Un femme prometteuse, cela va le rendre meilleur…_ Her thoughts grew louder at the same time, feeling the veins cut wide open as she spoke the same words the doctors had told her last week. _Cela ne fera pas mal, pas pour plus longtemps…_

A pin pricked her, and the glowing moonlight was extinguished like a candle flame. Amélie stopped humming, the song replaced by the buzz of cars rushing by, the drone of the wind and the sudden absence of meaningful sound. The world stood still, no longer spinning fast enough to blur Amélie’s sight and memories. In an instant, she forgot where she was and how she had gotten there, and she shut her eyes and took a deep breath for the first time in what felt like hours. 

It took only a minute to calm herself down. She was on her balcony, sitting seven stories above the busy streets below, listening to the pop music playing downtown and cradling her left forearm in her right hand. A stinging sensation had started to fill her, first tingling in her arms and now spreading to her chest all the way down to her legs. It felt like she had been stung by something poisonous, and was only beginning to feel the effects now. 

But something else didn’t feel right. There was a slowly settling smell of metal in the air, and Amélie’s head didn’t feel as heavy as it should have. Carefully, she opened her eyes, and gasped as she looked down.

There was blood. Blood everywhere. It was caked onto her fingernails and embedded underneath them, staining her nightgown all the way down to her chest where claw marks surrounded her heart. A free stream of it was pooling on her forearm, where there were too many deep lacerations to count. Her stomach had pale red spots along with her thighs and calves, and the soles of her feet were a sickly shade of the colour, some cuts still bleeding openly off of the ledge. 

The freezing night air punched her in the lungs. The shock went through her bones and down her spine. Hazy memories suddenly resurfaced, and images from the last week of Amélie’s life flashed by like lightning strikes. She saw herself dancing for six hours every day, leaving her feet bruised and too sore to stand properly on. She saw multiple lacerations on her left forearm, each cleaned and bandaged at the same time she washed the red colour out from her nails. And she saw her own bloodshot eyes staring back at her, begging her to give them rest for just one night, just once since she had returned from the hospital…

Everything Amélie had assumed to be true was not her, it was not her life. Gérard had made her breakfast for the past week and she had never touched it, consuming only prescription pills for every meal. He had been slowly moving away from her in the night, inching closer and closer to the edge of the bed as she laid there humming the same song every night. She had barely spoken to him since her memory had gotten fuzzy, and he had been worried about her since the night she’d come home, constantly asking her if she was sure she was feeling better. 

More images flashed across her mind as Amélie became dizzy, feeling the blood seep out of her veins and onto her nightgown. Her nail file, used every day to sharpen her freshly painted nails. Her cat, a striped tabby that had been dead for five months now. The crest of Overwatch worn by the people who had checked her out of the hospital, shooting doctors in the face and dragging her by the hair towards the exit. Gérard, the face she had been staring into every night, her eyes wide open and only focused on how still he was, how beautiful he looked when he was barely moving…

_Ne perments pas faire te de mal._

Amélie took a deep breath. Then another. She heard the pop song again, and looked up into the moonlight. This was normal. This was normal now. She wasn’t hurt - she was getting better. This was all the treatment she needed to recover. The doctors had given her everything she needed to save herself from her condition, save her life and keep her alive for as long as she wanted.

It took a few more minutes for her to stop seeing the red everywhere. When it faded into a pale pink, Amélie sighed, completely forgetting what she had even been worried about in the first place. This was a beautiful night after all - why would she waste it sleeping? No, it was much better to be under the stars, looking down on the city and tapping her fingers against the cuts on her forearm in time to her favourite song, the only one she could remember the tune of anymore.


	3. 霜冻

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The cryochamber malfunctions. Mei freezes over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the title is just one of her voicelines from when she cryo-freezes - it either means 'cryo-freeze' or just 'frost'
> 
> also the temperatures are in celsius bc i'm canadian - here's a helpful little conversion chart for americans
> 
> -60C = -76F  
> -30C = -22F  
> -100C = -148F

It was -60ºC degrees outside in the deep winter of Antarctica. None of Overwatch’s equipment had moved an inch for three years, not since the ice storm had hit their base and sent their agents into emergency cryostasis. They had been sleeping soundlessly since, leaving the whole place dead quiet to gather dust as they waited for their rescuers to come. 

But no one knew they were alive, and no one had entered the base in months. Nothing had changed since the day they’d gone under. Everything was exactly the same as it had always been. 

Until cryochamber 7 malfunctioned, and began to awaken its inhabitant.

She continued to sleep at first. Not hearing the distressed sound of the apparatus, Zhou kept her eyes closed and arms at her sides as the temperature dropped just low enough to release her from cryostasis. She snored peacefully as if it was an afternoon nap in a -30ºC pod that had reached its minimum temperature, and wasn’t going to get any warmer. 

She woke up after fifteen minutes in there, fully conscious. Shivering, she pressed against the glass that stared out at the rest of the room, and wondered why it wasn’t opening. She could fully see the rest of her team sleeping soundly, none of their chambers lit up in white and emitting steaming like hers was. She kept pressing against the glass as if her tiny little mittens would make the thick steel hatch budge at all. 

Panic didn’t set in immediately, but it did soon enough. Zhou’s insistent pressing turned to banging her fists on the door, and she started to shout for help. The cry echoed in the meter of room she had, a sound heard only to Zhou’s ears, which were staring to get cold. Being a smart girl, she realized shouting was useless. Being an anxious girl, she began to worry how much oxygen she could afford to breathe while inside a broken cryochamber.

Zhou was known for always finding a way out of sticky situations, but this was becoming one even she could not solve. The technology behind the apparatus was beyond her realm of knowledge, and none of the instructions she had been given would do any good. There was no ‘release’ button, no command to cool the chamber down - absolutely nothing could help her. Zhou was trapped.

As she realized the severity of her situation, the cryochamber itself realized there had been a problem. The sudden drop in temperature was not part of its orders, and there had been no external command given to release the inhabitant. The machine’s mistake was easily solved by a quick self-reprogram, which relocked the hatch and began to lower the temperature once more. The glass fogged up, steam stopped emitting from the vents, and the blinking emergency lights turned off, sending the surrounding room back into darkness.

Zhou realized the temperature dropping as soon as it began. By then, she had been awake for three minutes, and was starting to feel her fingers tingle. She was wearing pyjamas, thin clothes not even close to her heavy-duty jacket that was supposed to save her from hypothermia. The mittens would prove useless against the falling temperature, no matter how tightly she balled up her fists inside them. They were getting colder by the second, and Zhou wasn’t sure how much longer it would take for frostbite to set in. 

Running through all her instructions on what to do in case of hypothermia, Zhou felt her toes start to go numb. Her bare feet had already turned blue, and she started to stomp them against the chamber floor. Every tromp hurt horribly, but Zhou was quite fond of her feet, and under no circumstances wanted them to be permanently damaged. At the same time, she rubbed her hands against each other, trying almost desperately to keep them warm as the pins-and-needles sensation worsened.

The machine continued to freeze. Zhou’s teeth were chattering, and she wrapped her arms around herself in a feeble attempt to stay warm. Even though she was trying to stay positive and figure a way out of this, she knew her chances of escaping the cryochamber were slim. It was a high-tech piece of equipment that could go down to -100ºC, and her body wasn’t designed to survive for more than ten minutes at this temperature.

Still, she tried with all she could. When her feet went fully numb, she unwrapped her arms and went back to banging on the glass, throwing her fists at the hatch with a furious speed and strength. She took quick, shallow breaths, both out of panic and her quickly-settling symptoms of hypothermia. The chamber didn’t budge - it had its orders to return to a cryostatic temperature, and would let nothing interfere with its programming again. 

Zhou became dizzy as her strength failed her. The chamber had returned to its -60ºC environment, and as the temperature became stagnant, Zhou’s fingers went numb. Her ears and chin had lost all feeling as well, and she soon stopped shivering and trembling. She had no idea how she had survived for this long. According to everything she had been taught and told, she should have been dead thirty minutes ago while she was still asleep and clueless as to where she was. 

Then, she started to get warmer. The sudden feeling shocked Zhou, and she yelped in both surprise and confusion. It looked like the chamber was finally releasing her, after realizing its mistake and fixing itself properly. She gasped as she went from -60ºC to 0ºC in only a few seconds, the delusional sensation not real, but an outcome of her entire body becoming numb to the subzero environment. It was so unexpected that Zhou began to take off her mittens without knowing what she was doing, tossing them to the ground as she pressed on the still-freezing glass, hoping it would release her.

But instead of being dropped into the surrounding empty room, Zhou continued to ‘heat up’, taking off her pyjama shirt and bottoms until she was half-naked in the -60ºC chamber. Her fingers and toes were blackened with gangrene, and her pulse was slowing to half its regular rate. She knew there was no chance of escaping, and it terrified her. She would die here, frozen and unnoticed while her teammates slept, having no idea that their friend was freezing to death just meters away from them.

As she felt her eyelids start to close, a fear gripped her like she’d never felt before. It had only taken minutes for the cryochamber to drain her, killing her quickly and silently. In fact, the machine itself had no idea that its inhabitant was awake, and was suffering like she’d never suffered before at its mercy.

Until the last second before Zhou fell asleep.

The cryochamber suddenly detected a conscious life form inside of it, slowly swaying as it tried not to black out. The apparatus immediately halted its programming, relighting the emergency lights and defrosting as steam rushed out of its vents. It unlocked the hatch and slid it open, letting warm air from outside rush into the chamber and allowing the life form to tumble out onto the ground. She went from an environment of -60ºC to 10ºC in two seconds, and subsequently blacked out because of it.

But she took a deep breath of the fresh, warm air as she fell asleep again. She was sickly pale, half-naked and completely numb with blackened and ruined limbs. Her fingers, feet, ears, and nose would not survive past this ordeal. But Zhou would. She had escaped the cold, and she would survive.

As she slept quietly on the floor, her teammates still within their chambers, Zhou wondered what they were dreaming about as they were suspended in cryostasis. She hoped they were safe, and that nothing like what had just happened to her would happen to them. Because she knew that if it did, they would go through the same painful, terrifying and lethal ordeal - and Zhou would have no way to save them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao i couldn't kill her. mei if ur out there i love u too much


	4. you are already dead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hanzo requires his strength, and he gets it in a rather unconventional way. And there is never is a time where the monster hunter will leave him alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this isn't necessarily mchan but if u want it to be go wild my dude

Red was a beautiful colour. The rising sun often turned the sky crimson, a sight that had inspired and mystified humans for generations. The roses the townsfolk gave to each other in love were brilliant, passionate shades of ruby, and they sat underneath the palest blush cherry trees during the spring. It was a sweet colour; gorgeous in moderation, powerful in excess - a hue that was everywhere in everything, and was in turn, beautiful. 

The scarlet shade of the pond was beautiful to the demon alone. The once fresh water had turned red with the blood of his enemies, and the liquid now spilled out onto the grass and earth around it. This had been the unfortunate sight of death just an hour ago - he had returned to his rightful, ancestral land only to find it crowded by unwelcome guests. Now, twelve bodies lay to the side, bled out and pale, and the demon was alone to conduct his ritual. 

Hanzo tore another loose hair away from his head. It was nearly sundown, the sky beginning to glow an amber orange - the best time to bathe. This was a cleansing ritual of sorts, needed in order to maintain his strength and keep him alive for the next few months. Whoever’s blood was used wasn’t important - these were but mere unlucky intruders. The townsfolk wouldn’t realize they were dead for another few days. 

The tension in Hanzo’s hands relaxed as he touched the water. He cupped the liquid in his grey hands for a second, and watched it drip back through the cracks between his fingers. Whether it was warm or cold, he could not tell - sense was foreign to him, as it had always been. He cupped more and scrubbed it over his face, giving a good effort to the horns on his forehead, and rubbing a fair amount into the creases of his empty eyes. 

Hanzo dripped more of the blood onto his left arm, where an elaborate design of a hellish dragon curled from his chest to his wrist. It stung as the liquid ran down it, but the pain was quickly replaced by relief as he rubbed more. He swirled his hand in the water again, and set his feet in next. Eventually, he lowered himself fully down in the pond, sighing as all the tension and pain in his body was alleviated. 

The blood washed up to Hanzo’s neck as he settled. The thickness of the liquid was enough to keep his legs steady, and he laid quietly as the blood seeped through his skin and the metallic scent drifted up his nose. Were anyone else present for the ritual, they would think it was a scene directly from hell. Here he was, a demon lying in a literal pool of blood, with four sharp fangs bared and eyes glowing a dim white in the dying sunlight. 

Hanzo had been soaking for at least half an hour when he heard a rustle from the forest behind him. He groaned, knowing the hunter had once again caught up with him, and would not be kept away without effort this time. Sighing, Hanzo lifted his head. 

“You are not one to give up easily, are you?”

The trees rustled yet again, and a man stepped out from their blanket. Hanzo recognized the face that had been following him for weeks, along with the dated coat and hat. It was an ancient style the hunter was trying to emulate, but it was nowhere near as ancient as Hanzo was. “Could smell you from a mile away. Didn’t expect you’d be having… well, whatever this is.”

The hunter stared down at the scarlet pond, and Hanzo’s demonic form in turn. “You know, I’ve heard of a bloodbath before, but this gives it a whole new meaning.” he said, his face contorting as he took in the gruesome sight. 

“It is quite pleasant, actually,” Hanzo commented, turning around to look the pitiful hunter in the eyes. “But I would not expect you, of all humans, to understand why.”

The hunter sighed. Hanzo knew of all the weapons he carried on him - silver bullets, tainted arrows, blessed knives and sleeping potions, along with soybeans and holly amongst his artillery. All of these toys were as much of a threat to Hanzo as a stick was. For someone who was on a life mission to kill him, the hunter had barely a sliver of an idea for how to do it.

“I cannot tell of your purpose here,” Hanzo said to him, stretching his legs underneath the water. “It will be night soon, and then you will have more to worry about than myself.”

“I’m not worried about you. You’re looking pretty damn comfortable lounging in that mess there.” The hunter’s voice was passive, and Hanzo was sure he had no plan to attack in mind. He truly did not care for the hunter’s nuisance, and would much rather continue the ritual in peace than get out and confront him. At least the hunter could tell of that.

“It gives me strength.” Hanzo raised his hand out of the pond, demonstrating the liquid’s power to the hunter. Wine red droplets slowly dripped from his fingertips back down as his uninvited guest looked on. “What was theirs is now mine. The only reason why they struggle is to hold on to it, when they were never truly entitled to that power.”

“And what makes you think you are?” The hunter’s tone turned cocky, and Hanzo couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Because it is so easy. They fight, but they lose. Anyone who wastes their natural power on a doomed battle is worth destroying. It must be only human nature to believe that you can defeat something you could never kill.” Hanzo’s lips curled into a smirk, and the hunter swallowed hard.

“You do realize they had lives, right?” he said, narrowing his eyes to disguise his disgust. “And that you killed them for yourself?”

“Foolish lives, yes. I know many humans who lead those,” Hanzo shot his glare like arrows at the hunter, and watched his stare break the moment it reached him. “And it is not all for myself. Sometimes, it is killing just to kill. Taking a life because I can, and watching my victory unfold along with their veins. I assume you know quite a lot about that, hunter.”

“Not all of us are as sick as you,” the hunter spat out the words, shaking his head in shock. “I don’t know why you would do this, why any demon or monster or whatever-the-hell would.”

“Then you have no business interrupting me.” Hanzo said. He groaned, and rose himself out of the pond by his arms. His chest and shoulders were coated with blood, currant red droplets running down his arm and filling in the white spaces on his design. The hunter’s eyes widened, and he tore his eyes away as Hanzo smirked again, and teased him. 

“Unless you wish to stay, of course…”

“Not a chance, demon.” The hunter took a step back towards the forest, leaning into the safety the trees provided. He was so foolish - a man with a motive but no plan, scared of the danger he wanted to be enveloped in. He was in over his head; Hanzo knew it best, and was only offering understanding. There was a better understanding he could give him, but he hadn’t turned someone in centuries. Having a nosey monster killer as an apprentice certainly wouldn’t give him any power he didn’t already have.

As the hunter continued to walk back into the forest, Hanzo lowered himself back into the pond. The moon would soon take over the sun’s position in the sky, and the hunter would be wandering alone amongst lesser demons and monsters. Truthfully, Hanzo didn’t care - he would be much less bothered if a Tengu tore the hunter from limb to limb tonight - but he always hated to leave a conversation unfinished.

“If you truly wished to kill me, hunter, you should have done it now.” Hanzo called into the forest, not knowing nor caring if they hunter could hear him. “Drowning is not just lethal to your kind.”

And he chuckled as the trees rustled, knowing the hunter would be back soon enough, just as determined and foolish as he always was. He let all the remaining tension in his muscles go limp, and Hanzo calmly floated to the surface of the scarlet red pond underneath the pale crimson sunset.


	5. always saving your skin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Junkrat's always been reckless around fire - unfortunately, this time it's cost him more than a few singes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey important message!! i saw a comic of junkrat and roadhog on tumblr i think back in january or february of this year that had a similar scene in it, and because i based this fic off of it i want to give credit! unfortunately i don't know who drew it and can't dig it back up, so if you know the comic, know the artist, or are the artist, please tell me and i'll credit you as the inspo!!
> 
> EDIT: I FOUND THE COMIC (thank you user skirt!) It's here, please give it a reblog and support the artist if possible: http://kamukuro.tumblr.com/post/147179985286/zeroafterdark-roadhog-dealing-with-junkrats

As much as Roadhog insisted this was a complete disaster, there was no point making a such fuss over last night. Honestly, it hadn’t even been a bad fire. Just a little molotov bomb that had gotten a teensy bit out of control and put the whole city’s financial block up in flames. Junkrat had done worse before, both on purpose and by accident, and this certainly wouldn’t be the last time he caused some unintended, happy mayhem.

Unfortunately, it would be the last time he did it with two good arms. The resulting disaster had been great, but Junkrat had spent too much time admiring his work and stood too close to the undetonated bombs. He’d been on fire before, but never with half of his body completely engulfed in flames. It had been a little scary, but he was passed out by the time Roadhog grabbed him, saving the two of them right in the nick of time. 

Junkrat liked to think there was always an upside to these sorts of things. The junkers had gotten back after without any trouble, and had both woken up just fine this morning. Junkrat’s torso had made it out with only a few minor burns, and he hadn’t had much of a gorgeous face before, anyways. The downside was, of course, that his right arm had a serious third-degree burn from the elbow down, and the muscle of his right leg was almost completely charred. He couldn’t remember another time where he’d been this badly beaten up, and didn’t have the faintest idea on how to start fixing it up. 

Roadhog wasn’t happy, of course. But he never really was, and Junkrat knew this would just be more water underneath that great bridge they had. The big guy had made it out fine, and had only been coughing up blood for a few hours last night. In fact, he was almost completely unscathed by the fire, and hadn’t said a word about it since they’d gotten up this morning. If that wasn’t a sign that this would all work out in the end, Junkrat didn’t know what was. 

“You got any ice left, roadie?” he asked as he finished wrapping the gauze around his knee. The burn looked considerably worse the morning after, and he’d already used up all his ointment to no effect. Currently, he was just stifling it to stop it stinging so damn much. 

Roadhog didn’t answer, as per usual. He was fixing up his face, which was even more unsettling than it regularly was. Junkrat tapped his right hand in the quiet, out of nearby objects to fiddle with. He tried to wiggle the fingers on his now-bad hand, and found the tingly sensation too weird to like. He stopped quickly, and leaned down beneath the sofa to look for more gauze. 

“That sure was something else, eh?” he said, mainly talking to himself. “I’ll tell ya, I’m surprised we even made it back with the loot. You didn’t drop any of it, right?”

Roadhog grunted in response. Junkrat took that as a yes. “Always knew I could count on you, mate. I’d say don’t worry about any of this - once we’re all patched up, we’ll be back in business!”

“You done?” Roadhog said, turning his face in Junkrat’s direction. It was in worse shape than Junkrat had thought - there were two matching bruises above his eyelids, and dried blood was caked into his hairline. One patch of his face was burnt pretty bad, the skin all red and starting to bubble and scab. Junkrat shivered when he saw it, and avoided eye contact with him for the next few seconds.

“I gotta say, thanks for gettin’ me out of there like you did, mate.” Junkrat said, abandoning his search for gauze and sitting back up. He instinctively wiped his hand on his leg, and squeaked at the resulting twinge. “There probably wouldn’t be much of me left if you didn’t help out. But I’m still here, alive for another day of mayhem!” He dissolved into laughter, once again smacking his hand on his knee and screeching when it stung. 

Roadhog didn’t reply. He had turned back to the mirror, and was busy peeling off one of the scabs. His partner-in-crime still being alive was definitely more of a nuisance than a benefit right now. Junkrat knew as much as Roadhog said he hated him, he really did care if he lived or died, and this little grudge wouldn’t last for much longer. Once their wounds healed up, they’d make sure the other was okay to get back on the road, and then they really would be back in business.

Still, their current situation wasn’t looking too good. Junkrat had been immobile on the sofa since last night, and couldn’t walk more than a few feet away from it without falling onto the floor. Even he had to admit he was scared. This was the worst injury he’d ever had, and neither of them seemed to know what to do to fix it or work around it. 

“Roadie, erm…can I ask a question?” Junkrat asked a little sheepishly once Roadhog was done peeling off the scabs. He raised his singed-off brow, and Junkrat took that as another yes. “I’ll live with this arm, right?”

“Maybe.” Roadhog’s response was brief, and barely audible as always. “Don’t push it, though.”

“Oh, you know me, I’m never a pusher. I’ll take it easy-peasy!” He broke into laughter again, but paused mid-guffaw. “That does mean yes, right?”

Roadhog shrugged, and left for the next room over without so much as a head nod, presumably to look for something cold. Junkrat was left alone again, still tapping the fingers of his good hand against the sofa.

“Eh, she’ll be right.” he muttered to himself. Once he was sure Roadhog wasn’t nearby, he peeled back the bandage again, and stared at the discoloured tissue underneath. “It’ll be all right.”

 

A week or two later, the junkers were still camping out in the same shed. The door had barely been opened since the night of the fire, and neither of them had left for more than a few minutes since that night. Life had gotten boring without any explosions, and while they’d planned to do more than cause some misfortune and bolt, the result of that first one was exactly what was holding them back.

Junkrat’s burns had gotten much worse in the days they’d let them sit for. His arm had gone from a messy, slimy gash to dry and charred skin and muscle. He kept it bandaged up as often as possible, but whenever he did sneak a peek, he swore he could see some of the bone sticking out underneath. His leg wasn’t looking much better - it had shrunk in size from the gangrene, and was no longer useable. Junkrat hadn’t moved from the sofa in six days, and was starting to wonder if - when, rather - it was going to fall off. If his condition had him scared before, it most certainly had him terrified now. 

It was mid-afternoon in the junkers’ hideout. Junkrat was still on the sofa, keeping himself busy by learning how to write with his left hand. Roadhog was somewhere else, most likely getting ready for their eventual departure. Everything was quiet as it normally was now, as the two of them wondered what was supposed to happen next when they weren’t back in business as they’d wanted to be. 

The floorboards creaked as Roadhog walked into the main room where Junkrat was. He was busy writing his name for the fifteenth time that hour, and perked up as soon as he saw his friend. His resulting wide grin was annoying as always, despite how shaken up he was. “Ah, good to see ya, roadie! How’s the day going?”

Roadhog stayed silent, and sauntered a little closer to the sofa. “How’s the arm?”

“This thing?” Junkrat motioned to the dead arm, wrapped three times around in bandages. “Same as it ever was, hoggie, same as always. Might even look a little better today - I haven’t checked it out yet.”

“It isn’t.” Roadhog said, not even bothering to ask for a look. He stared intently at both of Junkrat’s rotting limbs as if considering his next move. There was something in his hand, but it was too far away for Junkrat to get a good look at it. 

Junkrat’s grin fell off his face, knowing something was up. “What’s the matter, hog? You got something you wanna tell me?”

“Your arm isn’t going to stay on.” Roadhog said out of the blue, and Junkrat stopped, confused. 

“Hm? What about my arm?”

“No point keeping it. Gotta fall off sometime soon.” Roadhog repeated himself, not making the situation any less confusing. 

Junkrat stared back at him, his eye twitching. “What d’you mean?”

“You have to take it off,” Roadhog repeated for the last time. “One way or another.”

“What, my arm?” Junkrat broke into laughter, and was about to commend his friend on the great joke when he started to realize what Roadhog meant. He stopped laughing, and looked back to his arm. It was unrecognizable - tied up in bandages on the outside and blackened underneath, not even able to move on its own anymore. His leg was the same - useless flesh that had been burnt to a crisp and rotted. They were really just dead weight now, with the chance of them ever healing getting slimmer and slimmer by the day. 

He looked back at Roadhog, originally to ask if he was serious about that, but then got a glimpse of what he was carrying. It was a woodchopper’s axe, small enough to conceal in one of his hands with a blade that had obviously seen better days. They normally used it for repairs, and kept it under Junkrat’s bed in case he needed to fight off any intruders. But he hadn’t been in his regular bed for weeks, and had forgotten it was even there. All the right pieces clicked together in his mind, and Junkrat realized what Roadhog had come in here for.

“You… uh, roadie, where’d you get that?” Junkrat asked, but Roadhog didn’t give him an answer. He stayed still, the masked face staring down at Junkrat’s immobile limbs, carefully thinking of what to do and say next.

“You aren’t going to chop me up, are you, mate?” Junkrat laughed nervously, and stopped when he once again got no response. Roadhog took a step forward, and Junkrat’s heart started to pound. 

“H-hey, what d’you think you’re doing with that?” he stammered as Roadhog lumbered towards him, the axe still hanging at his side. Junkrat tried to sit up on the sofa and wiggle away, but his bad leg wouldn’t let him go far. 

“I’m not going to hurt you.” Roadhog finally spoke as he got closer to Junkrat, paralyzed by both surprise and his dead limbs. “You always get so strung over these things.”

Roadhog raised his hand that held the axe, and Junkrat twisted his head away from it. “Just don’t move.” he repeated, bringing his other arm down towards Junkrat’s chest. Junkrat hadn’t expected this to be one of their solutions, and he was quickly becoming terrified by it. He’d assumed they would’ve just let the wounds sit until they fell off, but Roadhog was getting desperate. They had to get back in business, and that could never happen with his partner’s current condition.

“Roadie, y-you aren’t really gonna cut it off, are you?” he stuttered, giggling in fear yet again. He was petrified, having absolutely no idea what getting a limb cut off felt like, and having no further need to know it. He tried to wriggle away, but found himself held down by a single hand. 

“Don’t squirm.” Roadhog said, raising the axe up above his head. All the coherent thoughts left in Junkrat turned into sheer terror, and he shouted.

“Don’t! No, no, put that down, don’t touch me with it!” His cry fell on deaf ears, as Roadhog grabbed Junkrat’s rotted arm with his other hand, and pulled it towards the end of the couch. “Let me go, you bastard!”

Roadhog still didn’t listen. He unravelled the bandage and tore it off, exposing the discoloured, gruesome flesh underneath. “Roadhog, put it back on, you’d better not do this to me!” he shouted again, desperately trying to get out from the grip of his hand. Roadhog only raised the axe higher, looking directly at the divide between salvageable and destroyed muscle right at Junkrat’s elbow. 

“Have you gone fuckin’ mad, mate?” he screeched, flailing his good limbs around and knowing exactly what was about to come. “Put me down! Don’t you dare take my arm off!”

Junkrat opened his mouth to stammer out another plea, but Roadhog’s arm was already raised, and the axe came down like an anvil before he could speak. 

A pain that Junkrat had never felt anything close to shot through him. He shrieked as the dull blade chopped through dead tissue, bone and nerves, striking right at the break of his elbow. He heard the joint snap, and convulsed as the axe hit some surviving nerves, tearing right through the limb like it was made of wood. He couldn’t shut his eyes, and watched Roadhog struggle to pull the axe back out, yanking it out with enough force to make Junkrat howl at the top of his lungs.

Without taking a single breath, Roadhog swung the axe back down again. The pain was enough to numb Junkrat, and he lay there in a state of shock as Roadhog hacked and slashed through the dead muscle of his arm. He stared at it the whole time, the rest of his body trembling, yelling out when the blade struck nerves with a pain too horrible to comprehend. It took only a minute for Roadhog to finish the job, the longest minute both had ever lived through, and when he was done Junkrat’s arm fell to the ground, a grotesque stump of gangrene-infected flesh that had once been a part of his body.

Junkrat was in shock. He stared up at Roadhog, who was breathing heavily, holding the axe at chest level. “Leg.” he grunted, and Junkrat didn’t have the voice to protest. Roadhog’s hand pressed down on his chest again as the rotting leg was lifted up and put on the end of the couch right above his amputated arm. The axe swung down within the next second, hitting the wrong divide between the good and rotted flesh and making Junkrat cry out in excruciating pain.

Roadhog hacked through it with all the force he had, and within another minute, Junkrat’s right leg was no longer his. It slumped off of his body onto the floor, falling next to what had once been his arm, two dead limbs that looked like they had been pulled out of hell itself. Junkrat stared at the stump that was now his knee, gushing blood all over the cushions. What had just been a regular ruined sofa was now a deep shade of red, and what had just been a person with all four limbs was a wreck, trembling in shock, pain, and disbelief. 

“Probably infected,” Roadhog grunted, breaking his silence at last. “You should take care of that next.”

He tossed the axe to the ground, and grabbed a roll of gauze. Junkrat said nothing as he wrapped it around the two stumps, tying it as tight as he could and sealing it with tape. No one spoke for the next five minutes, Junkrat silently praying he wouldn’t bleed out and die despite the precaution Roadhog had just taken. It was as quiet as it normally was, the silence just as uncomfortable and frightening as it had always been. 

“You’ll survive.” Roadhog said eventually. He propped Junkrat up on the sofa carefully, and left for the next room again. “I’ll get ice.”

Once he was alone, Junkrat turned his head to look at what had once been his arm and leg. In the coming days, he would insist he was better off without them, and that Roadhog had done a good job taking them off, but in the moment, he was distraught. The shock would wear off soon, and soon he would feel all the pain the amputations had caused. He would need new limbs - he couldn’t keep going like this - most likely to be made out of scrapyard metal, which would take extra time to get used to. Sure, the junkers would be back in business soon enough, but not nearly as soon as they had wanted. 

There was always an upside to these types of situations, Junkrat thought. At least those hunks of rotted garbage weren’t attached to his body anymore, and he would be able to use his right limbs again sooner than he knew it. But as he bled through the bandages tied around the place where his arm used to be, he wondered if the downsides outweighed the upsides this time around.


End file.
